Pollwatch: Labour regain seven point Voting Intention lead

Labour regain a seven point lead in the Westminster Voting Intention - their largest lead since the beginning of April, according to the latest political tracker from Savanta ComRes.

The party rises two points in this poll, to 41%, with the Conservatives remaining static on 34% for the second consecutive week. The Liberal Democrats, buoyed by a good performance in May's local elections, record their first two back-to-back double digit vote shares since the beginning of April.

Despite this, the Best Prime Minister ratings remain virtually un-changed, with both Boris Johnson down just one point (34%) and Keir Starmer unchanged (36%).

If these results were played out at a General Election, Labour would still be a handful of seats short of an overall majority, according to electoral predictions website Electoral Calculus, but would likely be able to govern without the support of the SNP.

Despite the encouraging poll lead for Labour, their leader, Keir Starmer, takes a five-point favourability rating drop to -10, his lowest score since summer 2021, with Beergate a likely contributing factor since the last tracker in April.

However, this drop is considerably smaller than those experienced by the Prime Minister amid Partygate (-13pts, Nov-Dec 2021) and the Chancellor from March-April 2022 (-26pts).

Rishi Sunak, in fact, rebounds slightly in this poll, rising two points to a net rating of -18, while the Prime Minister drops 11pts to -30, having recovered somewhat last month when more attention was focused on Sunak.

The government’s overall net favourability also drops to -33, the joint lowest it has ever been in a Savanta ComRes poll.

Despite this, the Best Prime Minister ratings remain virtually un-changed, with both Boris Johnson down just one point (34%) and Keir Starmer unchanged (36%).

This does, however, mark the sixth consecutive month that Starmer is ahead of Johnson on the Best PM metric, having always trailed the Prime Minister until December of last year.

Commenting on the findings, Chris Hopkins, Political Research Director at Savanta ComRes says,

“The headline numbers in this poll are fairly unsurprising, with Labour continuing to lead in the voting intention, the Prime Minister and the government still suffering from poor favourability, and Keir Starmer feeling some fallout from Beergate. As ever, Labour still seem to be struggling to capitalise fully on the government’s poor ratings, and as long as that’s the case, there could be some potential for a Boris bounceback.”

“However, a voting intention lead of 7pts, while likely depiriving Labour of a majority, could well be enough to allow it to govern without the support of the SNP. If – and it’s a big if – Labour can sustain this, there is seemingly a path to No.10 for Keir Starmer, without having to risk the breakup of the union by being reliant on the SNP to form a government.”